ile, if you don't understand her popularity, you don't understand America (which you seem to admit). As Robin says, she's one of us, not some elitist, aristocratic snob who believes their better than us.

1) She is wily2) Her values reflect those of the heartland of America3) She isn't afraid to attack Obama4) She unhinges Democrats5) She upsets establishment Republicans so much that most of them won't even mention her as a serious candidate6) She can shoot and field dress a caribou7) She could probably beat Obama in basketball one on one8) She has taken the most vicious criticism of any politician in my life time and still steps forward to lead9) She is, as we say in North America, really hot

ile, IMO most of Palin's popularity is based on the fact that she is so different from the rest of our out-of-touch, know-nothing political class. Like too few others on the national stage, she earned her position and she appears to respect the rest of us out here trying to earn ours. That makes her a rare commodity.

Palin is better than the strange people running, or trying to, other countries and loved by the media

TrudeauLópez ObradorZelayaChávezOllanta HumalaThe Kitchner coupleEvo MoralesCorrea and the whole circus before himSarkosyBerlusconiPutinZapateroBlairClinton loved around the world after Anita Broderick,rape, Khaterine Wiley,sexual aggression, Paula Jones, harrassment, Lewinski, harrasment ,and selling presidential pardons and renting WH bedsUnlike all them she has values and is good loking . i would like to know why those criminals are popular

Let me clear - crystal clear - there is no way - impossible is the correct word - for Gov. Palin to win the GOP nomination, let alone with the White House.

- The core GOP will not want her. She will not get their votes.- The Elite Americans (academia, NPR, PBS, NYT) dislike her more than international people we have problems with. You get the picture, the hatred they have of her. You ought to read the liberal blogs. They really hate her. She will get 0% votes from Democrats.- The debates will be brutal, every tom/dick/sally will want to gotcha her. She will not survive. Any pol. who gets her will become instant celebrity-reporter. So, everyone will out for her.

Bottom line: She cannot win, because so many forces are against her.

Now, what about the GOP?

Well, the two people who could create problems are not running - Daniels and Christie.

GOP does not have anyone else: Just jokers, like Newt; repeated losers, like Romney, etc.

There is no way anyone in the GOP can win even one county/district/state in 2012.

The election is in the bag for Obama/Biden. I was in Chicago last weekend and they are planning the end-game. Do you what that means? They are planning the 2nd-term first 100-days.

You all in the GOP do not know what you are up against. No idea.

So, what is the plan for the GOP? What do I, as a K-street consultant, suggest:

- Focus on 2016. Forget 2012. Do not waste your time.

- Support all GOP in 2012. Best to be supportive, you will need all the help in 2016.

- Have a vision.- Have many deliverables, starting now, for 2012, then 2014, and 2016.- Support new GOP like Ryan, Christie, Haley.- Tell Newt to take a vacation in France. His new wife can buy more stuff there. Get him off the front page and tv news.- Become more diverse - eg. get Haley to talk more about South Carolina. - Etc.

Ordinarily, I would charge arm and length, but this is free as I like this blog, it is open and welcoming.

Sarah Palin is the first person who took on Obama! Sure. It seemed she got stale, in time. What with Bristol, dancing, and everything.

While, here we are at the start of the next "act." As the campaigns are heating up.

Very photogenic lady! One, picture, in your lot, though, doesn't make sense. Suddenly from a black top, to a white one, Sarah is shaking the same man's hand. (She's in a different pair of glasses.) And, Todd is in the 2nd shot, just beaming at his wife.

So, yes. Sarah gets looked at in great detail!

There isn't a politician out there who doesn't understand this! And, she's fresher than attending NASCAR. Here she is! At the US Capitol. Great day, too. Perfect weather. And, crowds of people.

We're off to the races.

And, yes. Sarah came out strong. From under the radar!

Can you imagine being Joe McGinness? With your sentences set in Alaska. And, a book due to be published?

Oh, none of us vote till November 2012. Right now, we're watching the show. Where the show matters. Because there's only one spotlight at center stage.

It feels really weird, but I find myself agreeing with AP's 3 points about Palin. But outside the box, this just means that she is the true Tea Party candidate--i.e., she doesn't "run" in the conventional sense, she is borne along on the shoulders of her supporters. The question no one knows the answer to right now is, just how many of those people are out there?

Finding out the answer to that question is what her bus tour is all about, IMO.

Here's the thing, she should just refuse to do the traditional debates which are run by the mainstream media. She should just offer to debate the Jug eared Jesus without any intermediaries. One on one.

I think that the best one is probably "She seems to actually enjoy the interests, hobbies and activities of the middle class person rather than appearing to be showing up for a photo op."

She is slightly (and I think that "slightly" is accurate) populist, but I don't think that her politics equal "populist". It's tricky translating terms between the US and Europe because our political divisions do not "map".

She highly UN-popular as well. Most likely because she seems to truly enjoy those middle class pass times instead of merely pretending to enjoy them for a photo op. ;-)

It feels really weird, but I find myself agreeing with AP's 3 points about Palin.

ChipS;

A warning about AP, regardless of the coherence of his points on a given day.

He presents himself as an expert (professional pollster or such), and not only a pollster, but one with secret, very valuable knowledge: 'I was in Chicago....'

In all his 'expertise' posts, at some point, he turns into a prophet of doom for our side; 'you have no chance; you don't know what is coming...', or something along those lines.

Basically, he's practicing psychological warfare. He's using the techniques of push sales (expertise, secret knowledge, sometimes testimonials) to try to demoralize our side. We should be aware of what he's trying to do, and try to minimize the damage.

If it were my blog, I'd ban him, but knowing the Professor she'll never do that kind of thing, so at least we should be aware of what he's doing.

Very photogenic lady! One, picture, in your lot, though, doesn't make sense. Suddenly from a black top, to a white one, Sarah is shaking the same man's hand. (She's in a different pair of glasses.) And, Todd is in the 2nd shot, just beaming at his wife.

Uhh, that is Piper in the white shirt. Todd is beaming at his daughter. And "that man" is Rep Allen West, Sarah's VP. :o)

Your point about her being looked at in great detail? Check the first pic, where Sarah is standing beside Piper, in those other sunglasses. Can't tell the color of Piper's shirt there, though.

"Can someone explain Sarah Palin's popularity? Makes no sense to me. (I'm not living in the N. America.)"

Unlike most politicians in the United States, people trust Sarah Palin because she has proven herself to be trustworthy. That is in large part the explanation for her growing popularity.

I'll give you one example: In the United States, we have laws concerning how our President may use our military to attack other countries (perhaps even your country).

Sarah Palin believes that the President should follow the law, and the United States Constitution, and get Congressional approval to attack another country.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, believes he can use the military as his personal hit squad and kill whoever he wants without even so much as a speech to the Congress. That's what he did in Libya. He just launched his own personal war and to this day has no legal approval to do it.

You see, Sarah Palin isn't a murderer, so people tend to like her. Barack Hussein Obama, on the other hand, is a gangster.

You should like Sarah too, since your country could be next on Barack Obama's list.

Oh, and I definitely get the "love the smell of the emissions." I have that emotional response to coal smoke, not because it smells good, but because it reminds me of important "happy" places in my life. (Smells like the boilers of steam engines.) The smell of roasting green chilis is beginning to be similar, and it really does NOT smell good.

The smell of cow manure reminds me of home. ;-)

Rotting seaweed and fish do NOT smell good... but they DO smell like the beach.

For the unenlightened, Rolling Thunder groups always come to the services, and then escorts the procession to the cemetery for every young hero who comes home from Afghanistan to his grieving family. If you cannot see the real loss at such a young age, and care about it, then you are worthless. Sarah knows that. The New York Times hates that about her the most. Instead they promote delusional liars like AlGore who pretend to save the globe by stealing money that could go for real help to people starving while crops are shrinking from cooling, and what's left is being sold for useless ethanol.

To men, she does not seem to be "high maintenance" or helpless, to women, the things she has done was without a rich, connected man. Todd is very supportive, but in a personal way, not with large amounts of money and/or influence.

ile, one thing is that if you're not living in North America you're getting a very filtered view of Palin. But consider the example of Reagan -- when he was President and I was living in Europe, you never got anything but the "amiable dunce" story.

Thirty years later, even pretty predictable libs like Douglas Brinkley are admitting he was both smart and crafty.

Charlie Martin.....many bikers now realize that you need to wear a helmut. If not because of their riding skills, but due to the idiots out on the roads. They will not wear a head bucket, so the manufacturers have come out with this style. It's quite popular with the riders who won't wear a helmut in the past.

> It's tricky translating terms between the US and Europe because our political divisions do not "map".

Ok, thanks, Synova. Will have to continue my journey in education then (Wikipedia will probably do).

Though, if you read Wikipedia, it says [... that favours "the people" over "the elites", or favours the common people over the rich and wealthy business owners.] ... so I don't know if it's that's far off.

Maybe a term that's easy to understand in many ways though... at least using it creates more discussion in web forums.

- The debates will be brutal, every tom/dick/sally will want to gotcha her. She will not survive. Any pol. who gets her will become instant celebrity-reporter. So, everyone will out for her.

Everyone already is out for her.

All she has to do is walk upright and speak in complete sentences to disprove much of her nasty reputation.

I was barely born when Ford was president, and my largest impression of him is pretty much Chevy Chase falling through a Christmas tree. If I were somehow bombarded with MSM stories (positive or negative) in which he was *not* a stumbling baboon, I would not only change my opinion of him, but I would question the roots of my previous opinion.

MSM's obsession with Palin grants her the opportunity to swing voters in a way that a more conventional candidate never could.

Joanna, that shows the power of MSM. Jerry Ford was one of our most athletic Presidents ever. He was one of the best athletes to ever play for Michigan, yet MSM had everyone convinced that he could barely walk without tripping.

But while she had a somewhat antagonistic relationship with "big oil" in Alaska, taking them to court over one thing or another, she hasn't vilified big business or big oil, to try to present them as the enemy of us. She's mocked with "drill baby, drill!"

Obama, on the other hand, does repeatedly attempt to vilify the wealthy and powerful, particularly corporations and banks, but also doctors and anyone else who can seem to have more than their share.

It's the difference between rhetoric and policies.

Palin sounds populist effortlessly because she dignifies the middle class, and her detractors use terms like "snow-billy", "caribou barbie", I've even heard "trailer trash", or fuss over her wearing "hoochi-hoop" earrings.

But she's not out there telling us to hate rich people or encouraging anyone to think that the way to solve our problems is to make some mythical entity pay their "fair share". She made the oil companies play fair, and she's got labor union connections, but no one would call her a labor candidate. And I don't think she's protectionist about trade, which is where US politicians usually express populism. (She did some trade "thing" in Hong Kong to promote Alaskan trade and investments after she resigned from being governor. I don't see antagonism there.)

You people and your mainstream media bullshit really annoy me. There is no mainstream media that is remotely as powerful as anything in the 1970s.

Moreover, and more importantly, you are apparently ignorant of history. You go out of your way to imply that Ford lost because Chevy Chase did a routine where he pretended to be Ford and fell down. You conveniently leave out Watergate. Watergate. Whatever you think of the mainstream media, Watergate was legitimate criminal behavior by the Nixon administration. And of course there was Agnew and his crimes.

No Republican was going to win in 1976. An unelected Republican appointed by Nixon was especially unlikely to win.

" ... yet MSM had everyone convinced that he could barely walk without tripping."

Sarah Palin is disintermediating the dinosaur gatekeepers - going directly to the people through the internet.

Remember, when Gerald Ford was president, there were essentially three television networks and CNN was just a few years old.

Today, I don't even need cable TV. I get no network news because they can't be trusted. The most famous newsman in the United States lost his job because he fabricated news stories and was found to have forged documents in an attempt to sway a Presidential election.

No American who is paying enough attention that they care to vote trusts the NY/Washington news media any longer because they've been exposed.

ile, People on this board love irony. That's why 60Grit used "superfluous" to lecture you about excess "u's."

Oops, my irony detector was broken.

Ok, good one then :) To be honest, it's hard to keep up with every post as much as I should.

BTW, on another note, Sixty's post was also right (on snotty Brits): The "emissions" thing was very puzzling. I still don't really understand how anyone could say something like that and get away with it - saying something like that would get you out of the race pretty quickly, here. So there is definitely some difference.

The "emissions" thing was very puzzling. I still don't really understand how anyone could say something like that and get away with it - saying something like that would get you out of the race pretty quickly, here. So there is definitely some difference.

See my comments above.

Gas and oil are great. Let the sissified intellectuals ride their choo-choos.

We American want fast cars and Harleys.

To quote the great American philosopher, Chuck Berry:

Riding along in my automobileMy baby beside me at the wheelI stole a kiss at the turn of a milemy curiosity running wildcrusin' and playin' the radiowith no particular place to go

I really do love this woman. She's real. And not at all stupid. An intellectual? Nope, and thank God, she isn't. Barry is enough intellectual for the next 100 years. No, she's smart. And principled. Something we need right now.

My prediction is that she's the nominee and has a good chance of beating Barry.

Joanna -- Why are you bringing up Saturday Night Live and conflating Saturday Night Live with what you call the mainstream media? What is your point?

Further, do you believe that Ford would have won had Chevy Chase not impersonated him? Do you believe that Ford had any chance of winning at all, even if the three networks were openly rooting for him?

Of course, I am fond of Palin, but I know the odds. She will bring diversity. GOP women leaders like her and Haley add a lot - they won on their own. Most Democratic women leaders like Feinstein, Boxer, and Clinton, got there because of the family. So, I support Palin. But, I know the odds. There also is a reason why Daniels declined to run. Winning the presidency after 2008 impact will not be easy; first one has to win the nomination. That was my point.

That 1976 election may actually be instructive. Reagan challenged Ford for the nomination, but Ford prevailed, following the customary GOP tendency to stick with the guy whose turn it is.

It turns out that Ford, with all that Nixonian baggage, still came within two points of winning, in what was a dead heat in the polls on election eve. Good thing the Republicans didn't take a chance with that right-wing lunatic Reagan!

Because I remember that Dan Rather and his team at CBSNews forged documents and produced fake stories leading up to the re-election of George W. Bush in an attempt to derail his candidacy.

They were discovered and forced to resign in utter disgrace.

There is a conspiracy, sir. Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and her production team at CBS News were part of it until they were discovered.

Have you ever heard of the Journolist? It is a list of influential media members started by the Washington Posts' Ezra Klein to coordinate media coverage in secret so that the political coverage would be maximally beneficial to the Democrat Party.

The Journolist was a real thing. It was a secret conspiracy amongst journalists and media organizations. It was disbanded only after it was discovered what these corrupt journalists were doing and some of their emails were leaked into the public.

There is a conspiracy to slant political news coverage. And the mainstream media is participating in that conspiracy and it's still continuing today.

Remember, when Gerald Ford was president, there were essentially three television networks and CNN was just a few years old.

No, no, no. The 'media' is not the biggest problem. It is the left's dominance of popular culture that really screws us. Two examples:

1) Media: During the latest witchhunt of oil company executives, Senator Jay Frigging Rockefeller chastized one of the executives with a 'have you no shame!' moment. He immediately went on on a weird tangent about how HE felt like he was rolling a boulder up a hill against the oil companies, and felt that he couldn't let go, or the boulder would crush the people of West Virginia. (Jay Rockefeller, modern-day Sysyphus.)

When the story was reported on the evening news, the broadcasted the angry, chastising moment, but not a word about the weird follow-up.

following the customary GOP tendency to stick with the guy whose turn it is

The GOP has won seven of 11 elections since 1968. Maybe not a bad strategy. particularly in light of all this mainstream media bias you see that is somehow causing people to irrationally vote against their interests.

That's just it. She raises all the hackles one longs to see raised. The alleged party of the common man, er, person scoffing at a woman whose college degree was obtained via a trek through several universities, none of them Ivy League; the alleged party of women going all "bimbo" in sheer panic; &c.

It's a pure pleasure, that panic. It's the sight of people who thought they had the permanent political leadership of the country discovering that the folks who weren't their classmates are not, after all, perfect idiots.

wv: fonamati. I think that that would be a great name for fellow-travellers of Palin. I am a fonamata. You?

If you want to see the Power of Palin incarnate, read the comments to Althouse's previous post on Palin and see the wonder of a flagrant & notorious homosexual rhapsodizing on the great American wonders that are Palin's breasts!

Even you, as a Scandinavian, must admit that is true power!

PS: I admire your command of English, It's pretty damn good for someone who doesn't even speak an Indo-European language! Finnish & English --- Talk about no cognates!

Very photogenic lady! One, picture, in your lot, though, doesn't make sense. Suddenly from a black top, to a white one, Sarah is shaking the same man's hand. (She's in a different pair of glasses.) And, Todd is in the 2nd shot, just beaming at his wife.

@ Carol_Herman

Are you a total moron? Really?

The second picture is Sarah and Todd's daughter, in a white tee shirt, at whom he is beaming. Sarah is plainly in the background.

Oh....and that "man" is Allen West also a great candidate for President.

Joanna -- Why are you bringing up Saturday Night Live and conflating Saturday Night Live with what you call the mainstream media? What is your point?I referenced SNL as an example of the media framing public perception of a public figure.

Further, do you believe that Ford would have won had Chevy Chase not impersonated him? Do you believe that Ford had any chance of winning at all, even if the three networks were openly rooting for him?My reference to Chevy Chase was not commentary about that election. I could have just as easily used an anecdote about Lady Gaga instead.

I'm not going to write the discourse that is necessary here but, in a nutshell, conservatives are always going to be culturally unpopular because conservatism is about reality. The fact that raising the minimum wage necessarily means losing jobs is very uplifting. The fact that virtue and hard, boring work are necessary for a good life are no fun. The fact that children of single-parent households are much more likely to be screwed up isn't a nice story.

Conservatism will always be a villain in popular culture produced by dreamy idealists and artists. Luckily, conservatives hold a great trump card, which is that all that other shit doesn't work. So, people -- particularly but certainly not exclusively older ones -- tend to vote often for conservatives because they realize that conservatism aligns with their and society's long-term interests.

Yes, on purpose. Since Todd was riding one bike with his younger daughter behind him (it would have been totally improper for Piper to ride behind some biker dude) Palin was either going to ride her own bike or be a passenger.

It would also have been bad etiquette for Palin to be riding behind a strange biker dude, since her husband was otherwise busy.

Seven,Respectfully, though 1976 was my first election and my recollection of it is not that of a seasoned observer of politics, I don't remember that election being such a cakewalk for Carter. According to uselectionatlas.org, that election would have gone the other way if New York had flipped, and Carter carried New York by fewer than 300,000 votes. I don't think it's probable that SNL flipped 150,000 votes in New York, but I don't think it's impossible either. And if the media had been rooting for Ford?

It wasn't a cakewalk for Carter. This is a testament to Carter's horrific weakness as a candidate for the presidency in the general election.

This has been my argument for why Palin the candidate is a bad idea. You people who are going euphoric for Palin need to understand that most voters do not share your euphoria and never will. I won't delve into the fact that Palin has no reported plans to deal with any of the number of crises the United States currently faces.

I still don't really understand how anyone could say something like that and get away with it - saying something like that would get you out of the race pretty quickly, here. So there is definitely some difference.

The smell of diesel always reminds me of waiting for the school bus to take us home from school. Fond smell.

We attend many hot rod events Hot August Nights being the biggest. The cruise is awesome. Hot Rods, V-8 engines, the smell of exhaust, the rumble of the motors making your entire body vibrate.

It is hard to describe the nostalgia and pride that people feel in those cars, those days and the total disdain for the putrid 'green' pieces of crap that the government and the eco-nuts want to foist upon us.

Castration of the American people is about the closest I can describe it and this is why we admire Palin. She is PROUD of America and proud of her chosen lifestyle which represents the majority of the American people. That segement of America which is most often looked down upon, made fun of and marginalized by the elites. That view is what you get in Europe, and it is a distorted false representation.

I would not be quite so didactic. 1976 was a quite close election, and yes, I do think Johnny Carson and Chevy Chase between them may well have made the difference.

Also, Nixon did not run a "criminal" administration in Republican terms. It is really remarkable considering all the other crap they pulled, but I cannot remember anyone of the "Nixon gang" who profited financially by their misdeeds.That is what "criminal" means to Republicans; to Democrats it is whether you oppose them or not - stealing they take for granted.

(And Ile is not a "Scandinavian" unless (s)he is of majority Swedish ancestry, and if (s)he is, it is probably not tactful to bring it up in otherwise polite conversation.)

About Scandinavian: It's OK, it's not that far off in many ways. Actually it might be a good way to lump us into "somewhere", and the identity that comes with it is pretty spot on in many ways. Also, there are many ways to think about that term.

Hagar -- I do not support the Obama administration. Please stop trying to make assumptions. You obviously aren't very good at it.

Maguro -- Mike Castle would be a United States Senator now, which would make passing the conservative agenda easier. Different states are different, and you have to respect that if you want to build an effective coalition that can, you know, pass laws. But you go ahead and savor your superior purity and those sweet losses.

Isn't he the guy who claimed to know, for sure, with secret knowledge etc etc etc, that the GOP would be so disappointed with the Nov 2010 elections?

He's obviously pretty ignorant about politics in America. Why are you guys letting him get under your skin? He's a troll. Yeah, I'm sure he's a democrat who thinks this is a clever way to deflate the GOP's turnout, but I think that's not worth worrying about. Once it's established that he made doom and gloom predictions in 2010 and is always wrong, we don't have to worry about him anymore.

Why is the concept of a marginal effect arising from one among multiple factors so difficult to grasp? Many factors usually work for and against most candidates in most elections; they're complicated things. Is it really necessary for people to mention every single one of them in every single comment on a blog in order to make one simple point?

(And Ile is not a "Scandinavian" unless (s)he is of majority Swedish ancestry, and if (s)he is, it is probably not tactful to bring it up in otherwise polite conversation.)

Really?

I'd never heard that distinction.

Fins are a different language group than Swedes or Danes or Norse but I wasn't aware that Scandinavian was specifically Swede. And I wasn't aware that getting lumped in with Scandinavians was offensive. (I suppose I can see being miffed at being mistaken for Swedish, or Dane... hm... I remember my dad saying that Sweden was made up of Norwegian and Finish cast-offs, which was certainly him being funny, but the "Fins are good people" part was honest.)

Seven,Respectfully, though 1976 was my first election and my recollection of it is not that of a seasoned observer of politics, I don't remember that election being such a cakewalk for Carter.

Ford was done in by a sluggish economy - which Carter would make far worse - and the Nixon pardon. In retrospect, pardoning Nixon helped the country move on; had there been the round of impeachment and trial, which the Demos would have dragged out, we would have been stuck in that post-'Nam depression for another 2 years or more.

ethan said...

I'm a little confused about how all the illiterates who hang out here stay so hard for Annie Althouse even though she's, like, never voted for a Republican.

Perhaps because they're literate enough, intelligent enough, tolerant enough, and sophisticated enough to appreciate a woman for her wit and intellect, regardless of the party for which she votes.

(I know, this is something Lefties are incapable of comprehending)

PS It doesn't hurt that she's a good-looking woman, too. The Lefties are like the Moslem crazies in this, they hate Americans because their women are so beautiful while they insist their own women look like eyesores.

I was pulling Ile's leg.Finland was occupied by Sweden for several centuries, which is why so many Finns look blond and Scandinavian rather than blackhaired and Finno-Ugrian. Today Finland is again independent, indeed very much so, and since the Finns were in the majority, they have elected to return to Finnish being the official language, etc., etc. and so on.

Yes, yes. I think I've mislead people to believe that I don't know at least the bare bones of my own History. Except for never having heard "scandinavian" is specifically "Swede" I am aware of Historical reasons that Swedes might be somewhat unpopular. (They also made a deal with Hitler to be neutral, if we want to talk about History more recent.)

Just who would report any plans that Sarah would have for dealing with the crises. What MSM would give you a true picture of what her plans were and how she would implement them. Would you trust them to report on those plans so that the people would get a good understanding of them? I surely wouldn't and I also would not share the plans with the Dems at this point in time nor would I share those plans with the reporters. Remember Charlie Gibson and his question about the Bush Doctrine. It was even commented on by the administration that there were several Bush Doctrines at various points in time but would you ever know that from the reports? Instead Charlie got all patted on the back for showing how dumb Sarah was for asking him which Doctrine he was talking about. The thing is that she was right. Also remember 1773? How dumb everyone said she was and again she was right? Given that kind of reporting why would she tip her hand at this point in time. Hold on to see what she has to say when it becomes time to lay out the proposals. You are making your decision based on nothing at all but the perceptions that the MSM is putting out there and how well have they read her thus far. Not well at all.

Yes, and the Finns were allied with the Nazis and fought long and hard on Soviet territory (e.g. the siege of Leningrad).

But, you know what? After how the USSR treated ethnic Finns in Karelia, "disappeared" Finnish communists, and invaded Finland proper, I don't blame them a bit for allying with Germany. People forget just how obnoxious Soviet policy was in pre-WWII eastern Europe to its neighbors. The Nazis, by contrast, never, ever messed with the Finns.

We have Romney and Newt-- both stodgey old angry white-bred has-beens who would, and have, sold their souls for power.

We have Pawlenty. A white-bred Minnesotan whom nobody knows anything about, and whom nobody cares to know anything about. Why do people from Minnesota even try? Wasn't Mondale from Minnesota? The nation is like "Minnesota? Yeah, whatevea..."

We have Rudy the jester. Trump the entertainer... but he's got already booked a better gig with the renewal of his show.

We have Michelle Bachmann, the authoritarian fascist who throws out a tea party bone every now and then. But she can't fathom in her pathetic womanly mind that the big authoritarian government she supports is diametrically opposed to the small government that she sometimes says might be a good idea to someday possibly think about.

We have Gary Johnson. I always want to type "Greg". Even I, as a total supporter of his candidacy, have trouble with the name recognition. He's always completely ignored by the MSM, just like his brother-in-libertarianism Ron Paul. Of course, he's younger and saner and much less racist-friendly than Paul. But he doesn't drink the big government Kool Aid, and wants to make changes that would piss off Republican interest groups (law enforcement, the prison business, defense contractors, Wall Street), so he ain't very viable. Goldwater is dead. Goldwater is dead. Goldwater is dead.

So how to differentiate yourself from this motley crew?

Join them and declare your candidacy? Nah! That would be a step in the wrong direction; you'd just be another runner in a race full of monkeys.

Or do you get on the bike on ride, like a new female Captain America?

Gosh, Palin is impressive. With one day's work she has pulled ahead of the whole fucking pack.

I can't wait to see what more she has in store. Doesn't this trip end up in New Hampshire? How superb is that!

I'll bet she holds off and teases us all... meanwhile, she'll demonstrate that she's different-- not by talking, but by being different-- and in a few months we'll be begging her to run. Please, Sarah, puh-leeze run and save us from the same old same old.

Right now I would vote for her (or Johnson or Paul) over Obama. Any other Republican? Nope.